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LI 






T HE TRUE LIKE OK A NATION: 
/ AN 

AD DEE S S , 

DELIVERED AT THE INVITATION 
OF THE 

ERODELPHIAN AND ECCRITEAN SOCIETIES 

OF 

MIAMI UNIVERSITY, 

THE EVENING PRECEDING THE ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT, 
JULY 2d, 1856. 

BY E. D. MAC MASTER. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETIES. 



' NEW ALBANY: 

PRINTED BY NORMAN, MORRISON, & MATTHEWS. 
1856. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President; 

Gentlemen; Fellow-Citizens: 

While these hills and valleys, which God hath made so 
beautiful, were yet covered by the primeval forests, in which the 
wild beast still made his lair and there still lurked the aborigi- 
nal savage, the spot upon which we stand was consecrated to 
learning and religion. By acts of the Congress of the United 
States, of April, 12th, and May, 5th, 1792, there was granted 
to certain parties therein named, in trust, for the establishment 
of an institution of learning, one full township of land, within 
a tract therein designated, in the land district of Cincinnati; 
conformably to a previous order of Congress of the 2nd of 
October, 1787. The year seventeen hundred and eighty-seven} 
mark it, fellow-citizens; a memorable era for this great North- 
western Territory! In pursuance of these acts of Congress, 
by letters-patent, executed by George Washington, President 
of the United States, under date of the 30th day of Septem- 
ber, 1794, one full township of land, of six miles square, to be 
located with the approbation of the Governor for the time be- 
ing of the Territory Northwest of the Ohio River, was granted 
to the parties named, to be holden, in trust, for the purpose in- 
dicated in said acts of 1792. Some difficulties having arisen 
in respect to the title of the lands first entered, by an act of 



Congress, of March, 12th, 1803, to amend an act entitled "An 
Act to enable the people of the Eastern division of the Terri- 
tory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio to form 
a Constitution and State government, and for the admission of 
such State into the Union, on an equal footing with the origi- 
nal States, and for other purposes;" in virtue of the acts of 
1792 and in lieu of the township therein granted; the title in 
fee simple of one entire township, to be located under the di- 
rection of the Legislature of the State of Ohio, was vested in 
the said Legislature, to be holden in trust for the establishment 
of an academy.* 

The State of Ohio, having thus become the depository of 
this trust, by an act of the Legislature, of April, 15th, 1803, 
appointed three commissioners, "to perform all and every mat- 
ter and thing necessary to be done, in locating and registering 
the said College township, or thirty-six sections of land." The 
Commissioners under this act located the College township, 
near the centre of which, and upon whose highest elevation, 
we are now assembled; and reported their proceedings to the 
Legislature at its next session. In pursuance of all these an- 
tecedent acts, the Legislature, by an act of February, 17th, 
1809, established this institution of learning "by the name and 
style of the Miami University, for the instruction of youth in 
all the various branches of the liberal arts and sciences, and for 
the promotion of good education, virtue, religion, and morality, 
and for conferring all the literary honours granted in similar 
institutions;" creating certain citizens therein named, their suc- 
cessors, and others, duly elected, from time to time, by the 
Legislature, "a body politic and corporate, by the name of the 
President and Trustees of the Miami University;" vesting in 
the said corporation all powers necessary to carry into effect 
the design of the institution; and therewith the title to the lands, 
with authority to dispose of the same under leases, the annual 
rents and all other income of the corporation to be appropria- 
ted to the endowment of said University, "in such manner as 
shall most effectually promote virtue, morality, piety, and know- 

*Journal of Congress, October 2nd, 1787; and Laws of the United States, 
vol. I, 499, II, 287, III, 542. 



ledge."* The published Laws of Ohio show nine several acts 
of the Legislature, passed at different times, from February, 
6th, 1810, to February, 10th, 1824, for the carrying out of the 
original design of the institution. 

By an Ordinance of the President and Trustees, of July 
6th, 1824, a Faculty of Instruction was organized; and on the 
first Monday of November next ensuing, the University was 
opened for the reception of students§. From that time till the 
present, it has flourished, under the authority of the State, the 
general supervision of the Board of Trustees, from time to time 
appointed by the Legislature, and the immediate direction of 
the Faculty, as it has existed from time to time by the appoint- 
ment of the Trustees. 

It is not without a purpose, Mr. President, gentlemen, and 
fellow-citizens, that I have referred to this history of the estab- 
lishment of the University, and have recited the substance of 
this various legislation in relation thereto. A University, es- 
tablished for such objects, under such auspices, and sustaining 
such relations to this Commonwealth and to the highest Federal 
authorities of the United States, ought, in its own appropriate 
place, according to its own proper vocation, and in a way conso- 
nant to its own character, so far as in it lies, to take care that the 
Republic receive no detriment. And, called at the invitation of 
the young gentlemen of these societies of the University, and 
as I have been informed with the approval of the proper au- 
thorities of the University itself, to bring to the academic fes- 
tivities of these high days of its anniversary celebration, my 
humble contribution for the entertainment of this hour, I 
know not how I can better fulfil the object of the appoint- 
ment, than by inviting you to a consideration of the ques- 
tion; What is the true life of a nation, which, by the law of its 
being, it is bound to live; and what the inward principle of that 
life, by acting upon ivhich alone, it can preserve its existence, 
develop its powers, accomplish its objects, and attain the ends of 
its being'? Perhaps the consideration of this question, too, is 
not without some suitableness to the times upon which we have 
fallen. 

*Laws of Ohio, vol I, 36, VII, 184. 

^Ordinances of the President and Trustee? of Miami Univ., p 103. 



I. What is the true life of a nation, which, by the law 
OF its being, it is bound to live. 

The life of a nation, like that of an individual man, is two- 
fold, external and internal. 

The external life of a nation is the sum of all its actings as 
a body-politic with other nations; in war; in diplomatic inter- 
course; in treaties of peace, of amity, of commerce; in confed- 
erations and alliances for objects of common advantage, or of 
common humanity; and, in general, of its actings upon the 
whole of the wide field of action which is covered by interna- 
tional law. This external life expresses itself in the official 
actings of the public functionaries of the government at home, 
charged with the administration of foreign affairs; of diplomat- 
ic functionaries abroad; and, in war, of armies, including com- 
manders-in-chief, inferior officers, subalterns, and the soldiery. 

The internal life of a nation is the sum of all its actings as 
a body-politic towards itself and its own citizens, and in refer- 
ence to its own internal affairs. This internal life expresses it- 
self, pre-eminently and most conspicuously, in the official act- 
ings of the various public functionaries, legislative, judicial, and 
executive, invested with the powers of the government for the 
administration of its public affairs. It includes, however, also 
the actings of the various subordinate municipalities establish- 
ed under the general national authority, through their respect- 
ive functionaries; and, in a hamacratic polity, such as that of the 
United States and of the several States of the Union, in the act- 
ings of conventions of deputies to effect changes in the organic 
law; and even the political actings of semi-official meetings 
for political purposes, and of individual citizens in the exercise 
of the right of suffrage and in obeying the laws. 

The common life of a nation has its seat in the nation organ- 
ized and existing as a State. The term State designates the 
nation under its highest form of organization and its most per- 
fect character as a Body-Politic, existing under its proper con- 
titution and constitutional laws and institutions, with its con- 
stitutional and legal functionaries; while the term nation is 
taken with a wider latitude of meaning, as including various 
elements not belonging strictly to the political life of a people ,- 



And the common life of a nation, we say, has its seat in the 
nation existing as a Body Politic; that is as a State. 

The question, then, what is the true life of a nation, which, 
by the law of its being, it is bound to live, must be determin- 
ed by a consideration of the origin, character, objects, and 
ends of the State. 

1. The State, then, has its origin in the constitution of 
man's social nature and his external relationships in the 
world; and is thus instituted by God, as the Creator and Ruler 
of the world. 

This is the doctrine of the highest human authorities both 
of ancient and modern times, and is the common sentiment of 
mankind. Thus Plato, in his Republic, says; "Let us invoke 
to ourselves God for the constitution of the State." 6s.bv dk 
■xpoQ T7jv zTJz tzoXecik; xazo.oxs.i>-q\> ircr/aho/isda* In his Laws, he 
represents this principle as the foundation of the binding force 
of all laws. Says he, "The Gods are, they are good, and they 
have a respect for justice very different from that of men, 
this is indeed to us the finest and best preamble of all] laws." 
6eoi r' eiae, xal dyyadoi, uixyjv tefjMvrsQ d:a<pepbvza)z avdpcbixcov. 
o%zdbv zouzo fyjuu urzkp cLx&vzcov zcov vb/uov xdlhazbv re xal 
d.peazov npootpcov av itqrf Cicero, in his Laws, represents the 
first principles of all laws as derived to us from this Divine 
source. Speaking of God, he says, "Nunc ibidem ah eodem * * 
sunt nobis agendi -primordial And again, "Let the citizens of 
a State first of all be persuaded of this, that the Gods are the 
Rulers and Governors of all things; that those things which are 
transacted are carried on by their power; and how sacred be- 
comes civil society, when the Gods are present now as judges, 
now as witnesses." — "Sit igitur hoc a principio persuasum civi- 
bus, dominos esse omnium rerum ac moderatores Deos, eaque 
quoe gerantur, eorum geri judicio ac numine; * * * quamque 
sancta sit sosietas civium inter ipsos, Diis immortalibus inter- 
positis, turn judiciis, turn testibusj" The Greek philosopher 
and historian Plutarch, who flourished in the end of the first 
and beginning of the second century of the Christian era, 
gives a notable testimony to the common sentiments on the 

*Rep. Bk. IV. +De Legg. Bk. X. 

JDe Legg. Bk. II. S. iv.. vii. 



subject of the ancient world. Says he, "There has never 
been a state of Atheists. If you wander over the earth, you 
may find cities without walls, without king, without mint, with- 
out theatre or gymnasium; but you will never find a city 
without a God, without prayer, without oracle, without sacri- 
fice. Sooner may a city stand without foundations, than a 
State without belief in the Gods. This is the bond of all so- 
ciety and the pillar of all legislation." Coming down towards 
our own times; says Bacon, "All government is the ordinance 
of God, and religion is the chief bond of human society." 
And again, "A king is a mortal god on earth, unto whom the 
living God hath lent his own name. He must make religion 
the rule of government, and not to balance the scales: for he 
that casteth in religion only to make the scales even, his own 
weight is contained in those characters, 3Iene, Mene; TeJcel; 
Upharsin; he is found too light, and his kingdom shall be 
taken from him. The king that holds not religion the best 
reason of State, is void of all piety and justice, the best sup- 
ports of a State."* Mr. Locke, in his Letters on Toleration, 
maintains that "an acknowledgment of the being of God 
lying as it does at the foundation of the belief of a future 
retribution, it ought to be required as a condition of citizen- 
ship." Mr. Burke, in his Reflections on the Revolution in 
France, says, "Taking ground on that religious system of 
which we are now in possession, we continue to act on the 
early received and uniformly continued sense of mankind. 
That sense not only, like a wise architect, hath built up the 
august fabrick of States; but, like a provident proprietor, to 
preserve the structure from prophanation and ruin, as a sacred 
temple, purged from all the impurities of fraud, and violence, 
and injustice, and tyranny, hath solemnly and forever conse- 
crated the commonwealth and all that officiate in it. This 
consecration is made that all who administer in the govern- 
ment of men, in which they stand in the person of God him- 
self, should have high and worthy notions of their function 
and destination. * * * * All persons possessing any por- 
tion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed 
with the idea that they act in trust; and that they are to ac- 

*Works, I, pp. 2 -2, 463, 308, London, 1838. 



9 

count for their conduct in that trust to the one great master, 
author, and founder of society. * * * * * All know and 
feel this great ancient truth; "Quod illi principi et praepotenti 
Deo qui omneni lnmc mundum regit, nihil eorum qua) quidera 
fiant in terris acceptius quam cactus hominum jure sociati quae 
civitates appellantur." They take this tenet, not from the 
great name which it hears, hut that which alone can give true 
weight and sanction to opinion, the common nature and com- 
mon relation of men. They think themselves bound, not only 
as individuals in the sanctuary of the heart, or as congregated 
in their personal capacity, to renew the memory of their high 
origin and caste; but also in their corporate character to per- 
form their national homage to the institutor and author of civ- 
il society. * * * * They conceive that He who gave our 
nature to be perfected by our virtue, willed the necessary 
means of its perfection: He willed therefore the State: He 
willed its connexion with the source and original archetype of 
all perfection."* Says another authority infinitely greater 
than all these together, "Let every soul be subject to the 
Higher Powers; for the Powers that be are ordained of God: 
Wherefore ye must needs be subject for conscience sake; for 
they are the ministers of God."f 

2. Political society with its order, being thus founded in Di- 
vine institution, and its power resting ultimately upon Divine 
authority, its ultimate and highest ends are moral ends; and 
the highest objects, about which it is conversant, and by which 
its ends are attained, are objects, moral, nay religious in their 
nature. 

We may say without hesitation, that the chief end of the 
State is the glory of God in the highest well-being of men. It 
must, however, always be borne in mind, that this, its highest 
end, the State may not seek the attainment of by all means in- 
differently, however good in themselves; but only by acting with- 
in its own appropriate sphere, and by doing the specific work 
which God has appointed it to do. It is not all things of a moral 
and religious nature of which the State may assume the man- 
agement. Its highest ends, however, are moral in their nature. 

*Worke, vol. Ill, pp. 108, 109, 114, Boston, 1807. 
Utom. XTT. 1, 5. 
2 



10 

So also the highest objects of the State, about which its 
powers are conversant, and by which its ends are attained, 
are moral objects. The first, chief, and most essential object 
of the State is the establishment of Justice; by the protection 
of its citizens in those determinate rights, — "perfect rights," 
■as they are called by legal writers, — which, from the nature 
of the case, are capable of being enforced; among the most 
important of which are those of life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. Beyond this, which is acknowledged to be the 
primary object of the State, there is a wide field, embracing 
all which may be included under the general title of economy, 
concerning which it has been long disputed how far it lies prop- 
erly within the appropriate sphere of the State. Upon this 
debatable ground I do not wish here to enter. I speak only of 
the primary, highest, and most essential object, the establish- 
ment of justice. This, we say, is an object essentially moral; 
nay, religious, in its nature. To the most superficial mind 
that thinks at all upon the subject, it must be obvious how 
•many civil and political questions, about which the administra- 
tion of justice is conversant, do run directly and immediately 
into the domain of religion. Such are the questions con- 
cerning the conjugal, parental, and filial relations, and the 
rights and obligations pertaining to these relations; to educa- 
tion; to the Sabbath; to Wasphemy and obscenity; to systems 
of religion which are directly subversive of morals; and, in 
short, to the whole rationale of crime and its punishment. 
It is the common idea of mankind that the criminality of crime, 
that which makes crime to be crime, is its moral demerit, and 
that this moral demerit is the true ground of all punishment 
of crime by the State. This idea of mankind arises from the 
constitution of their moral nature, and embodies itself in the 
language of every people. All penal law must necessarily 
rest upon strict principles of justice. There is not a civilized 
nation upon earth that would endure to have the administra- 
tion of punishment avowedly proceed upon any other ground. 
All morality, too, ultimately grounds itself upon religion. 
There is, it is true, another theory of morals which has obtain- 
ed a wide currency. I do not, however, enter here into this 
subject, or stop to inquire, what is the moral value of an ethics 



11 

which is -without religious origin, sanction, or aim. I here as- 
sume that all morality grounds itself upon religion. Upon the 
question before us, the testimony of the Scriptures is explicit and 
decisive. "Wilt thou not be afraid of the Power? If thou 
doest evil be afraid of the Power; for he is a minister of God, 
an avenger, (ixocxoc;,) to execute wrath upon, him that doeth 
evil; wherefore ye must needs be subject for conscience sake"* 

3. The State,, founded in Divine institution, appointed for 
the attainment of moral ends, and conversant about moral ob- 
jects, is itself a moral person, possessed of moral character, 
and as such is bound to act in conformity to the principles of 
the moral law of God, as the supreme standard by which it 
shall conduct its affairs. 

The idea of the personality of societies, implied in that of a 
common life, is familiar to all men. It is recognized by the 
laws of all civilized nations, as belonging even to those private 
and very limited and subordinate associations of men, formed, 
for the promotion of learning, or art, or science, or the commer- 
cial and material interests of men, or any of the lawful objects 
of private life. Much more is it everywhere recognized as be- 
longing to the State; — a public society; not only possessed of 
intelligence, will, activity; but which has its foundation in the 
universal law of man's social nature; which comprehends all 
men as its members; which is permanent in the reciprocal 
rights and obligations existing between it and its members; 
and which is indispensably necessary to the well-being of men, 
and to the development. and perfecting of their nature, qual- 
ifying them for this world and for the world to come. 

But to this public personality of the State belongs moral 
character. The State, as a public person, is itself under law 
to God, and is bound in all things to inquire what is his will, 
and to obey his high behests. Not only so; but the State as a 
public person, thus itself under law to God, is, under God 7 
sovereign in all political and civil relations over men. It is the 
great minister of Justice, as such establishing Justice among 
men. There is, indeed, a wide field, comprehending numerous 
and manifold indeterminate duties of good-will, of kindness, 
of beneficence, between men, which are incumbent upon them 
*Rom. xiii. 4, 5. 



12 

in all the various relations of human life, of which the l)ivino 
law alone can take cognizance. But the State recognizes all 
those determinate obligations, the correlatives of determinate 
rights, which from their nature are capable of being enforced 
by law; and by measures, partly preventive, partly punitive, 
it seeks to repress all wrong, and to establish among men uni- 
versal and impartial justice. By its laws it declares itself on 
the side of all justice and against all injustice. What it does 
not thus prevent, in the exercise of its function of judgment, 
it inquires into, condemns, and punishes. Thus in this high, 
august, and awful office of the Administrator of Justice, as has 
been finely said, "The State, though from afar, imitates Om- 
nipotence; perhaps the least inadequate of all earthly repre- 
sentatives of that Divine power, which is the true foundation 
of all legitimate government."' We hold, therefore, that the 
State is a public person, essentially moral, nay religious, in 
its origin, its ends, its objects, audits character. 

There is, indeed, another and widely different theory of the 
State, which takes its name from Bishop Warburton, one of its 
most distinguished advocates. It is the legitimate offspring of 
the system of ethics, which, taking its rise from the sensational 
philosophy ascribed to Locke, was developed by Paley, and car- 
ried out more fully to its logical consequences by Bentham; the 
system which makes conducivenessto happiness the ground of 
moral obligation, confounds the distinction between the idea of 
the right and the useful, the to oixaiov and the to yrr^azdu, and 
which, thus confounding human language, goes to obliterate from 
the mind the very idea of duty. The Warburtonian theory of the 
State is, that civil society, with its whole government, institu- 
tions, laws, and administration, having a purely human origin 
in social conventions and compacts, is properly conversant only 
about outward, material, and merely earthly interests; that it 
possesses no moral character, and has nothing to do with moral 
considerations; that it exists only to secure what, according to 
a very narrow view, are taken to be the rights of person and 
property; that, as it is baldly enough expressed, "the object of 
political society is the preservation of body and goods;" or, as 
some one has still more coarsely said, that all the State has to 



do is "to look out that my neighbour does not pick my pocket 
or box my ears." Says Locke, in his work on Civil Govern- 
ment; "Political power I take to be a right of making laws, 
with penalties of death, for the regulating and preserving of 
property; and of employing the force of the community in the 
execution of such laws, and in the defence of the Commonwealth 
from foreign injury; and all this for the public good." Says 
Warburton, "Whatever refers to the body is in its jurisdiction; 
whatever to the soul is not." 

It has been very justly remarked by Dr. Arnold, that the 
Warburtonian theory appears not to be the natural conclusion 
of inquiries into the character, objects, and ends of the State; 
but a device to enable us to escape from difficulties which 
we know not how to deal with. That there are difficulties 
arising from the state of human nature and of the world, and 
which will continue to exist so long as this remains what it is, 
is true. But, however these difficulties are to be obviated, 
we cannot accept, for relief from these, this godless theory. 
There is no virtue in calling things by hard names; and we 
would rather avoid it. But the attempt to constitute political 
society without God, and to ignore his being, and his domin- 
ion, and his law therein, is simply political and social Atheism. 
It is a theory which may justly be denominated false, earthly, 
sensual, devilish; and its prevalence every way fraught with 
the greatest evils. It reduces the State from the character of 
a great Moral Power in the earth, the Administrator of jus- 
tice, and the Vicegerent of God, to that of a mere police; and 
its great office from the highest of merely natural vocations, 
to the lowest of all functions. In profound contempt of this 
low, utilitarian, godless theory of the State, Mr. Burke points 
out its degrading and ruinous effects. "The age of sophisters, 
economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of 
Europe is extinguished forever. * * * * Even commerce, 
and trade and manufacture, the gods of our economical politi- 
cians, are themselves but effects. They too may decay with 
their natural protecting principles. * * * If commerce and 
the arts should be lost in an experiment to try how well a 
State may stand without these fundamental principles, what 
sort of a thing must be a nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, 



u 

and at the same time poor and sordid barbarians, destitute of 
religion, honour, or manly pride, possessing nothing at present, 
and hoping for nothing hereafter."* In a still loftier strain 
and higher tone, to the same affect, writes the eloquent and dis- 
tinguished British statesman, Mr. Gladstone. "It is a strange 
and appalling state of things when the creatures of God fall away 
from the law and purpose of their several natures. It is not 
that, when reduced from the rank of a moral personality and 
Divine power to the condition of an animal existence, without 
traditions, without hopes, without a future, or a past, without 
a perception that passes beyond the visible into the indestruct- 
ible, without virtue, without glory, the State must necessarily 
cease to exist. No: it may drag onward, even when it has 
reached the utmost goal, a worthless load of life. It may as- 
pire to the resemblance of that Nebuchadnezzar, who, from 
the tiara and the purple; came to herd with brutes. The State 
might still, after such a change were wrought, wield, during its 
permitted time, those masses of human power which, to ovir 
contracted vision, appear great, and produce proportionate re- 
sults. It would still be the organ of the nation, would have 
fleets and armies at its command; but the God of battles would 
no longer go forth with its hosts; His presence would have de- 
parted froin the vacant shrine; and the acts done under a scheme 
which involves the avowed and formal abandonment of the 
highest law of duty, must by a sure though perhaps a circuit- 
ous course, essentially tend to that corruption out of which 
they were engendered. * * * Can it need any argument in 
detail, to show that when men, whose temptations are already 
great, are placed in a function which must be habitually dis- 
charged, without the possibility of authoritative reference to a 
spiritual standard, the habits created and confirmed by such a 
function must, as an ultimate rule, be framed after the fashion 
of the world and a fallen nature, and must therefore exercise 
upon personal character an influence of a hardening and dete- 
riorating description? For he that declines to submit his en- 
tire conduct to the active control of the will of God and claims 
to regulate it upon, perhaps not a hostile, but an independent 
principle, is so far withdrawing himself from God, and guilty 
♦Works, III, pp. 92, 96. 



15 

of the highest positive offence against his law, which claims, not 
a negative, but a positive service. Is it extravagant to say, 
that the effect of such a change would be to repel men of the 
highest consciences and noblest and most unselfish aims, from 
public office, and to leave it to be administered by that inferi- 
ority of virtue, which, in the course of years, is always proved- 
to be inferiority of strength? This taking the heart out of the 
function of governors would inflict on them a real degradation, 
far different from any which can ever attach to the humblest 
and most despised of such offices as fulfil the law of their in- 
stitution, by being performed, relatively to their best capabili- 
ties, for the glory of God. * * * Thus would mankind set up 
a vast, unconsecrated, atheistic power at the head of all their 
social interests, as an example for all individuals to follow, a 
model to teach them, an authoritative declaration to assist the 
evil voice within in teaching them, that they may withdraw 
their own individual lives from allegiance to God, and base 
their methods of social conduct upon a code in which his name 
is not to be found. * * * If without religion we can learn and 
discharge our duties to our country, and our laws, and our 
authorities, can we not also without religion, learn our duties 
to our parents, brethren, families, friends, where we are aided 
by natural instincts and where the return in the shape of en- 
joyment, is more certain, immediate, and abundant, as well as 
the corresponding penalty of failure to perform them? We 
learn, then, that the argument which is good to prove that re- 
ligious differences (or irreligion,) have no bearing upon the 
discharge of political duties, is equally good to prove that they 
have no bearing upon private life, and consequently asserts the 
possibility and propriety of both a social and moral system 
founded on atheism, in its real and substantial sense, of the de- 
nial of a providential government of the world. Is not this 
assertion, conveyed through the most authentic organs which 
are at human command, an issue awful to contemplate?"* 



^Gladstone's "State in its Relations With the Church," Vol II, pp. 34«, itc. 
Loud. 1841. 



16 

II. What is the inward principle of this life of a na- 
tion; BY ACTING UPON WHICH ALONE, IT MAY PRESERVE ITS OWN 
EXISTENCE, DEVELOP ITS POWERS, ACCOMPLISH ITS OBJECTS, AND 
ATTAIN THE ENDS OF ITS BEING? 

In reply to this inquiry I answer, that it is the true, living, 
and practical spirit of Christianity in the heart of a nation. 

The fact of the deep depravation in all men of their moral 
nature, is one for an authentic account of the origin of which 
we are indebted to the Sacred Scriptures. For the fact itself, 
we might rest upon the testimony furnished by the universal 
observation and experience of mankind themselves, both in 
the Pagan and the Christian world. This depravity has its 
root in atheism. Lord Bacon has evinced a better exegetical sa- 
gacity than many professional divines, in interpreting the Scrip- 
ture account of the fall of our race. "As for the knowledge," 
says he, '♦which induced the fall, it was the knowledge of good 
and evil; wherein the supposition was that God's command- 
ments and prohibitions were not the originals of good and evil, 
but that these had other beginnings, which man aspired to know; 
to the end to make a total defection from God, and to depend 
wholly upon himself '."f An atheistic ethics, taught often since 
from many chairs of philosophy and in many books even of 
Christian divines; but taught first by the Father of lies, trans- 
forming himself into an angel of light; was embraced by man; 
and thence followed a total defection from God and depend- 
ence on himself. Man was not made, no creature is, to be an 
Ens Autocrates, a being having the law of his conduct in him- 
self. Hence in the vain and presumptuous attempt, his life 
has been full of all error and distraction. 

Rebellion against God and alienation from the life of God 
have implanted in human society the seeds of dissolution. This 
evil works even in individual man. So long as he is obedient 
to God, his understanding is enlightened, his passions are in 
subordination to his reason, all the faculties of his nature are 
in a state of harmony, and peace reigns in his heart and life. 
But when he revolts against God, his understanding is darken- 
ed, the inward harmony of his own nature is disturbed, its low- 

t Works, Vol. I. p 14 Loiul. 1«3S 



17 

or faculties are broken loose from their proper restraints, and 
he is full of disorder, and misery. So does this same prolific 
cause of evil tend to ruin in all human associations. Disobe- 
dient to the Divine law, and^casting off the fear of God; the 
rein is thrown upon the neck of evil passions; selfish cupidity, 
envy, anger, wrath, strife; and all is full of anarchy, confusion, 
and every evil work. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent; 
nowhere at least does it appear on so great a scale; as in the 
sphere of national life. From whence come wars and fightings 
among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that 
war in your members? 

Christianity is a Divine scheme for the remedy of these evils. 
It is essentially a scheme of reconciliation. First of all, 
through the fulfilment of the righteousness of the Divine law 
by the obedience unto death of the Son of God, on behalf of 
sinful men, it restores them to their true legal relations to God. 
It at the same time redeems them from the bondage of corrup- 
tion, and restores them to holiness. As a Divine power, com- 
ing down from God out of heaven, it enters into humanity, and 
transforms men, by the renewing of their minds, into the Di- 
vine image. It reveals to them the Divine law as the rule of 
their life: for, while delivered from the condemnation of the 
law, they are not without law unto God, but are under law to 
Christ. It sets before them the most powerful motives: for the 
love of Christ constraineth us. This law, moreover, is written, 
not with pen and ink, or on tables of stone, but with the Spirit 
of the living God, on the tables of the heart: for it is the Spirit 
that quickeneth. This Divine power penetrates into the inmost 
depths of men's moral being, heals the very fountain and puri- 
fies all the inward springs of human conduct, and becomes in 
them the informing principle of a new life. It thus regene- 
rates society in its elements, in individual men. It extends 
this healing and life-giving influence to all domestic and so- 
cial relations. It enters into political society, implants in the 
minds of men new principles of action in political affairs, con- 
forms the inward springs of their conduct to a new law, puri- 
fies their motives, and renovates the State. Thus, where it is 
embraced, Christianity becomes, through all the relations of 
human life and all the spheres of human action, a system of 



18 

reconciliation. It reconciles men, every one to himself, all to 
one another, and the whole unto God. As in the physical 
world, so in the moral, one law of attraction, prevailing through 
the whole system and all its parts, one all-pervading power, 
correcting the perturbations by which else its order might be 
disturbed, binds the parts, great and small, to each other, and 
the whole to the common centre and source of light, and life, 
and blessing. Hath the science of a godless statesmanship 
any provision like this? In all the political philosophies of 
earth, is there any principle that hath a power like this to con- 
serve and secure the well-being of States? 

It is the want of a power such as that of Christianity, to re- 
deem men from the curse of the Divine law and from the bond- 
age of corruption, which has been the true cause of the ruin 
of all the nations of the earth, which have passed away and 
perished. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, 
Rome, all have perished for want of a Religion that could save 
them. In heathenism, a corruption of natural religion, there 
were indeed some elements of religious truth, some scattered 
rays of light, refracted, and decomposed, and dispersed, and 
gilding with fantastic colouring the thick clouds which hid from 
the heathen nations the face of God. But heathenism had no 
power to redeem the nations from ungodliness and sin. Know- 
ing not God, they festered in their own corruption, till one by 
one they perished. Monitory and instructive are the lessons 
upon this subject, which history, from the monuments of the 
past, teaches to living nations, if haply they have ears to hear. 
They all confirm the doctrine, that the life of a nation, which 
by the very law of its being it is bound to live, is essentially a 
religious life; and that the inward, informing principle of this 
life, by acting upon which alone it can preserve its existence, 
develop its powers, accomplish its objects, and attain its ends, 
is the true, living, practical spirit of Christianity in the heart 
of the nation. 

III. Our own nation, — what is its destiny? 

I turn, fellow-citizens, from these general remarks to the 
practical question concerning our own nation; — what is its des- 



10 

tiny? Nations die like men. Many nations, great and mighty, 
have died, and the places which once knew them now know 
them no more forever. In Christianity there is hope for the 
living nations. But, even since Christianity entered the na- 
tions, nations- have perished. The empires of Constantine and 
of Charlemagne and Otho, — where are these? For ages all 
the nations of Europe have been like the tumultuating billows- 
of the Ocean which break along its Western shores; like the 
troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire; 
and dirt. The present nations of Europe, — does any man 
think that these are to stand under their present systems?" 
And our own nation, our own nation, sprung of such a lineage,, 
the possessor of such a patrimony, the expectant of such hopes,, 
what is its destiny? Is it to live forever? Or has it, too, in 
itself the sentence of death? — and are already the seeds of cor- 
ruption beginning to work towards its dissolution? Shall some 
future Gibbon sit amidst the ruins of the Capitol, and project 
the plan of "the History of the Decline and Fall of the Amer- 
ican Empire?" Shall some future Layard, in a remote age, 
disentomb the remains of New York and San Francisco? This 
it is which makes the general question of the life of nations 
one to us of special interest. Were this out of account, the 
general question would still possess for us, as philanthropists, 
a general interest. But when it concerns our own nation, it 
is a question which comes home to our bosoms and our busi- 
ness, and possesses for us a profound and absorbing interest. 
The Roman Senate, when Hannibal had crossed the Alps, 
and in the battle of Cannes cut to pieces the Roman army, leav- 
ing 40,000 men and the great body of the Roman knights dead 
upon the field, and was daily expected at the gates of the city, 
decreed its solemn thanks to the Consul Varro, who with the 
wreck of his army had fallen back upon Rome> determined to 
defend it to the last extremity; because in 'perilous times he had 
not despaired of the Republic. We, fellow-citizens, do not des- 
pair of the Republic. We have good hopes of the Republic. 
It does not become the friends and advocates of civil liberty 
and self-government to be terrified and frightened from their 
propriety, by the conflict of opinions which must take place- 
wherever liberty is enjoyed; or even the occasional outbreaks 



20 

of violence, which, much as they are to be deprecated and 
when they occur to be condemned, from the present condition 
of human nature, are unavoidable under the working of a po- 
litical system such as ours. 

But, while we refuse to be alarmed without cause, or beyond 
cause; or ourselves to become alarmists; it were a false position 
to assume that there are no evils and causes of evil in our na- 
tion, by which its future welfare, or even its existence, are en- 
dangered: and there is neither wisdom, nor patriotism, nor pi- 
ety, in the confidence which arises from a heedless and thought- 
less ignorance, and a shutting of our eyes upon the existence 
of such dangers, or the causes from which they arise; but only 
fatuity and presumption. Other nations, many and great, 
have perished. The main causes, however accidentally varied, 
of this ruin of empires are such as exist universally in human 
nature: and it is only by a clear apprehension and appreciation 
of these causes, and by a timely, constant, vigorous, and faith- 
ful employment of the means of counteracting these causes, 
that we as a nation are to be saved from the same fate with 
those nations which have already passed away. Nations, like 
individual men, have their laws of life; which can never be vio- 
lated with impunity; and which cannot be grossly, habitually, 
constantly, and perseveringly violated, without sooner or later 
undermining the national constitution, — I mean that constitu- 
tion, which lies deeper than any constitution written on parch- 
ment, in the law of our social nature established by God, — and 
bringing on dissolution and death. In the case of our own 
nation it is not to be denied that, while there are reasons of 
encouragement cheering to the heart of the patriot, there are 
symptoms ominous of evil. They are the best friends of their 
country and the truest patriots, who, in their places, and accord- 
ing to their opportunity and the measure of their ability, call 
attention to the evils and causes of evil which exist and to the 
appropriate means of their remedy. I can only touch slightly 
upon some of these, which seem to me at this time to claim 
special notice. 

1. First, undoubtedly, among the existing evils, and causes 
of evil and of danger, is to be placed a great defect in nation- 
al religion. 



21 

Allow me to say here, that I make a broad distinction be- 
tween a national religion and a national church, either con- 
founded or blended in one with the State, or legally establish- 
ed by the State. These are entirely different matters, to be 
clearly distinguished in the minds of men. It is, indeed, a 
great question, What are the normal relations which, accord- 
ing to the will of God, ought to exist between the two great 
Divinely ordained societies, the Church and the State? And 
it is curious to remark the contrast between the confident dog- 
matism, on the one hand, often in perfect unconsciousness of all 
the conditions of the question, of men who have perhaps never 
spent an hour in inquiry on the subject, and on the other the 
acknowledgment of the difficulties in its proper solution, by 
the ablest men who have devoted to the subject the study of a 
life-time. But I have made mention of this question, only for 
the purpose of the more distinctly putting it entirely aside in 
the consideration of the matter of which I am now speaking. 
The principle we go upon, in what I am now saying, is that the 
nation, quite irrespective of any question about the relations 
which ought to exist between it and the church, ought itself to 
possess, as a State, the Divinely ordained Administrator of jus- 
tice among men, and therein sustaining the high office of the 
Vicegerent of God, a religious character and life of its own. 

I have before noticed the distinction between the terms a 
nation and a State. The term nation designates a people view- 
ed in respect to various elements which do not belong imme- 
diately and directly to its political character and life; as race, 
language, literature, art, science, philosophy, and the like. 
The term State designates a nation in that form in which it 
rises to its highest organization as a Body Politic, existing 
under its organic law, with its constitutional laws and institu- 
tions, and its public functionaries, legislative, judicial, and ex- 
ecutive. 

Now it is not enough that the obligations of religion be ac- 
knowledged by the individuals composing a nation, in their in- 
dividual capacity, and in their social relations, and that the spirit 
of religion pervade the various spheres and govern the activities 
of their private life. It is true, indeed, that religion, as a liv- 
ing, practical, governing power for good, has its seat pi i> 



22 

marily in the hearts of individual men; and that that religion 
will be of little efficacy for good in respect to any interests 
■whatever, and will be of little worth any way, which is not so 
seated. It is true also that a religion, so seated in the convic- 
tions and affections of a people, influencing them indirectly in 
their political relations, as well as in all others, may in some 
sense be called a national religion. But this is not enough. 
The State, being a public person, having a distinct personality 
of its own, has in this respect obligations and necessities of 
its own. Having its origin in Divine institution, and therefore 
the creature of God, existing for moral ends, conversant about 
moral objects, possessed of a moral character, and having 
moral responsibilities to and reckonings with God, it ought, as 
a State, to have a religious character and life of its own, and 
in suitable forms to give expression to these. This is peculi- 
arly incumbent upon the State, as such; because the State as- 
sumes to exercise dominion over its subjects, their property, 
their persons, and their lives, and to make peace and war with 
other nations, as the Vicegerent of God, in the name of God, 
and by the authority of God; and it is monstrous, that a power 
vested in men should, in that august and dreadful name, as- 
sume such prerogatives, and yet not expressly acknowledge its 
own subjection to the Majesty in the heavens, and to the Di- 
vine law, as the supreme standard by which it is obliged to con- 
duct all its affairs. Nothing less than such an express and 
solemn acknowledgment, in its organic law, and in other ap- 
propriate forms, of God and his law, and a corresponding spirit 
pervading its legislation, its judicial procedure, and its whole 
administration of public affairs at home and abroad, comes up 
to the proper idea of a national religion. 

I have said, that there is in our own nation a great defect 
of national religion. I do not say that it is without any 
national religion, even in this highest sense of a religion 
of the State. Perhaps,, after all, we have, in profes- 
sion at least, more of national religion, than either the ene- 
mies or the friends of religion have generally imagined. 
Judge Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the 
United States, Art. VI., Sect. 3; and Amendments Art. I; 
which have by some been supposed to exclude all religion pro- 



23 

perly national, holds the follow language: "The right of a 
government to interfere in matters of religion will hardly be 
contested by any persons, who believe that piety, religion, 
and morality are intimately connected with the well-being of 
the State, and indispensable to the administration of justice. 
* * * It is difficult, indeed, to conceive how any civilized so- 
ciety can well exist without them. And, at all events, it is im- 
possible for those who believe in the truth of Christianity, as 
a divine revelation, to doubt that it is the duty of government 
to foster and encourage it among all the citizens and subjects. 
This is a point wholly distinct from that of the right of private 
judgment and of the freedom of public worship according to 
the dictates of one's own conscience. * * * * Probably at 
the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the 
amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not 
the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity 
ought to receive encouragement from the State, so far as it is 
not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and 
the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all 
religions, and to make it a matter of State policy to hold all 
in utter indifference, would have created universal disapproba- 
tion, if not universal indignation. * * * The real object 
of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less to ad- 
vance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating 
Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, 
and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which 
should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the na- 
tional government."* 

Through the Common Law of England; which, except where 
it has been limited by constitutional provisions or by statute 
law, is the law of nearly all the States of the Union; Chris- 
tianity has a legal recognition as the religion, at least of the 
people, if not of the States. Such are the views of th,e most 
eminent statesmen and jurists of our country. In the Con- 
stitutional Convention of the State of New York, in 1821, 
Chief Justice Spencer, perhaps the most able jurist who 
has appeared in that Commonwealth, "declared it to be his 
deliberate and decided opinion, that the Christian religion is 

♦Story's Coram. Sect. 1865, 1868, 1871. 



24 

a part of the law of the land." With this view Mr. Rufus 
King, long eminent in the councils of that State and of the 
nation, expressed his agreement. "I hesitate," said Mr. King, 
"in agreeing to the doctrine, which seems to deny to the Chris- 
tian religion the acknowledgment, protection, and authority, 
to which I have believed it to be by law entitled. * * * 
The laws of the State do so far recognize and establish the 
Christian religion (comprehending all denominations of Chris- 
tians,) as a portion of the law of the land, that defamatory, 
scandalous, or blasphemous attacks upon the same may and 
should be restrained and punished. While all mankind are 
free to enjoy religious profession and worship within this 
State, yet the religious profession of the Pagan, the Mahom- 
medan, and the Christian aire not, in the eye of the law, of 
equal truth and excellence," &c. Chancellor Kent held that, 
though the Christian religion is not properly a part of the law 
of the State, yet, "Christianity is, in fact, the religion of the 
people of the State; * * * the foundation of all belief of a 
future state, and the source and security of all moral obliga- 
tion: and to blaspheme the author of that religion, and to de- 
fame it with wantonness and malice, was an offence against 
public morals, * * * and in that view the offence is punish- 
able." In this view substantially concurred Mr. Van Buren, 
Gov. Tompkins, Mr. Henry Wheaton, and other eminent mem- 
bers of the Convention.* Such also are the views of Mr. 
Webster, maintained in the case of the Heirs of Girard vs. 
the City of Philadelphia. In various forms direct and indi- 
rect the institutions of the Christian religion are recognized 
in the Constitutions and laws of the United States and of the 
particular States, and in their daily practice. 

It is not true, then, that there is made by our nation the 
entire separation of religion from the State and all political 
affairs which is often alleged. But it is true, and it is a mat- 
ter of just reproach, that in the Constitution of the United 
States, the organic law of the nation, there is, in direct and 
express terms, no recognition of the being, the providence, 
or the law of God; that in some of the more recently formed 
State Constitutions there are ill considered and ambiguous ex- 
KVporta of the Convention, pp. 462, 464, 574, 577; Albany, 1821. 



■2b 

pressions on the subject of religion; and that all these Con- 
stitutions, without infringement on any rights of conscience 
or true liberty of religion, might contain, and that they ought 
to contain, a clearer and more express acknowledgment of 
Christianity. It is well known, indeed, what gave occasion, at 
least in great part, to the jealousy on the subject felt by the 
framers of these Constitutions. In every fibre of my moral na- 
ture, I sympathize with those who, looking back upon the past 
history of the world, regard with intensest abhorrence the ille- 
gitimate union of Church and State, with all its train of evils, 
and Avho desire to see all this every where come to an end. 
Whatever else is doubtful, this is clear, that the Church and 
the State ought to be strictly kept each within its own sphere; 
and that in no case ought offices properly political to be vest- 
ed in ecclesiastical functionaries as such. I believe that the 
great body of the Christian ministry are in integrity and 
intelligence not inferior to any other class of men. But 
I know no hierarchy; Greek, Roman, or Protestant; Pre- 
latical, Presbyterian, or Independent; which I would be 
willing to see trusted with power; even in ecclesiastical affairs, 
much less in political; not hedged around on all sides by all 
possible guards against abuse. I am, moreover, not blind to 
the difficulty of a public acknowledgment of Christianity in ex- 
press and definite terms, by States in their constitutions, and 
laws; where the people profess different forms of religion; and it 
is but right that this be fully and fairly considered. But the just 
claims of Christianity; as against Paganism, Judaism, Moham- 
medanism, Mormonism, and all false religions, and against irre- 
ligion; as being the religion which is of God, are to be fearless- 
ly asserted; and the obligation of all men and all States ex- 
pressly to acknowledge it as such, and practically to obey it, 
is to be maintained. There is, then, in our nation a great de- 
fect in national religion: and of all the evils which endanger 
the well-being of the nation, this is that which is the most 
fundamental and the greatest. Does any one doubt that, if 
the true, living, practical spirit of Christianity were in the 
heart of the nation, and pervading all our constitutional forms, 
our legislation, and our administration, this would bring 



26 

security, peace, and prosperity to our nation? The nation that 
disregards this sins against its own life. 

2. Growing out of that of which Ave have just spoken, is 
another evil of great magnitude; the prevalence of a low, utili- 
tarian, and false ethical, and politico-ethical philosophy; and, 
as the effect of this, a low, materializing, Chinese civilization. 

In reference to the whole theory which makes the object of 
life to be the augmentation of physical comforts and enjoy- 
ments, and of the various elements which make up an accumu- 
lation of physical good, well does Mr. Sewell in his "Christian 
Politics," say, "It is right, it is absolutely necessary, at this 
day, that all who value their country, should raise a warning 
voice, whether in the legislature, or in the pulpit, or in schools, 
or in books, against the theory which would make this accu- 
mulation the end of society, and the primary obligation of the 
citizen. Such a theory has gnawed its way, not only into all 
our political philosophy, but into our public legislation and 
private practice, till it has degraded society from its highest 
functions, has sensualized and animalized its character, and 
has extinguished the noblest instincts of private as well as of 
public life." 

3. As the legitimate effect of both the evils mentioned, ap- 
pears another, fraught with the greatest danger; a passion for 
foreign aggression and territorial aggrandizement. 

How much talk, these ten years past, have we had, about 
our "manifest destiny;" meaning by this a destiny to subvert 
the governments of neighbouring nations, to butcher their sub- 
jects, and to rob them of their domain! Do those who thus 
talk not know that, in such a career, we can only be imitators, 
repeating the old and ruinous game of all the great empires of 
antiquity? Our true destiny is one of our own, and is of a 
very different kind from this, if but we have a heart to under- 
stand it. It was a high compliment which was paid by the 
•eloquent Kossuth to our country, when in his address to the 
Legislature of this Commonwealth, at the capital, some years 
ago, he said; "The United States have been raised up by God, 
to be a new Mountain of Law to all nations; and the people of 
the United States to be a new Moses, to proclaim that law to 
all peoples." Happy did we know our high calling, and were 



27 

we qualified to fulfil it. Only the spirit of Christianity can 
teach us this. 

4. Nearly connected with all these evils, is a fourth; false 
views of liberty; and an overlooking of its true ends. 

What is true liberty? It must be distinguished from licen- 
tiousness. "Wherever;" says Prof. Lieber, "men of whatever 
condition, ruler or ruled, individually, by classes, or as nations, 
claim rights, without acknowledging corresponding obligations, 
there is oppression, lawlessness, and disorder. Wherever 
there exists a more intense attention to right than to concur- 
rent and proportionate obligation, evil ensues. The very con- 
dition of right is obligation. Let us call that freedom of action 
which is determined and limited by right, Liberty; freedom of 
action without limitation by obligation, Licentiousness."* Lib- 
erty, too, it should ever be remembered, is not itself an end, 
as men are ever prone to think it; but only a means to ends, 
which are higher than liberty. It is but the opportunity, with- 
out interference or hindrance, to pursue the great objects and 
ends of our being which God has set before us. It is ever a 
proper inquiry, what is the end of liberty? — why should we be 
free? — just as it is a proper inquiry, why should we exist? 
The proper answer to both is, That we may fulfil our duties to 
God, to ourselves, and to our fellow-men; that we may work 
the work for which God has given us our being in the world. 
Liberty, rightly understood, is liberty to do this without hin- 
drance, and to enjoy the rewards which God has connected 
with duty. We are in not a little danger from the growth 
among us, in high places and in low, of the political vice which 
the Greeks call a.xoXaa'ta; a reckless, wilful, wicked lawlessness, 
in men claiming the rights of freemen, while they give way to 
the carelessness, the folly, and the licentiousness which are in 
keeping only with the character of slaves. It is a political 
vice which, when it becomes prevalent, is a mortal malady in 
the body-politic. It destroyed the Greek democracies. Noth- 
ing but the power of Christianity can cure this evil, and teach 
men the true nature and ends of liberty, and form in them the 
aax/ipoauvT], the habit of self-government, which alone makes 
liberty a blessing. 

*Pol. Ethics, Vol. II, p. 3. 



28 

5. Nearly related to that of* which I have just spoken, is 
a disregard of parental and other just authority by the youth 
of the country. 

Of this is born that character known among us as "Young 
America" "Young America" is the personification of young 
ruffianism. He is ignorant, crude, and therefore full of self- 
conceit; forward, unmannerly, impudent; wanting in all respect 
for age, or station, or character; the boy controlling the 
father, the pupil patronizing or cashiering his teacher, and the 
young man demanding that court be paid him by the old 
man; sharp-faced, and hard-faced, and precocious in the 
knowledge of all evil. This is "Young America." It is well 
when such a character gets a name, that he may be identified, 
and that common decency may put into the hand of every 
honest man a whip, to lash the young rascal naked through the 
world. I feel a great interest in boys: I like boys: but not 
this boy "Young America." He is a bad and dangerous fel- 
low. He will steal your purses: he will burn your houses: 
he will unseat your judges: he will break up your ballot-boxes: 
he will mob your assemblies. Keep your eye upon him: mark 
him: whip the "unwhipt Adam" out of him, or he will ruin 
you. 

6. Closely connected with the evils which I have mention- 
ed, is another; an exaggerated egotistical individualism, the 
vice everywhere of barbarism. 

7. Another evil worthy of notice, is an inordinate love of 
private well-being, leading to the seeking of profit, or of quiet 
and enjoyment, at the expense of fidelity to the claims of pub- 
lic justice. 

This is one of the forms in which the selfishness of human 
nature appears. The man of trade says, Let my traffic pros- 
per and my fortune grow, whatever becomes of Justice. 
The man of leisure, the man of ton, of fashion, of sumptuous 
living, says, Let me enjoy my quiet, and my pleasures; al- 
though the scales and the sword fall from the hands of Jus- 
tice. The professional man says, Let me pursue my calling; 
the scholar, Let me enjoy my books; the man of science, 
Let me explore the caverns of earth and survey the heavens; 
although Justice be cast down from her seat by the hand of 



20 

violence, her decrees trodden under foot, and her voice smoth- 
ered. This is an evil. What the Greeks called 710X07rpo.yfj.0G- 
vv7], a forward, busy, officious intermeddling with all matters, 
which do not belong to one, because for them he has no fitness, 
certainly is no virtue. But the Greek d.7tpayfj,oai)Vij, a with- 
drawing from all active participation in, and heedless disregard 
of the public affairs of the State; from whatever cause it arises, 
is a political vice, and of evil consequence; and is one of which, 
with its ill consequences, we are in danger. Especially is 
there danger, that from the rough, coarse, low quality of poli- 
tics among us, men of intelligence, of knowledge, of culture, 
of refined tastes and moral sensibilities, whose participation in 
political affairs would be attended with the greatest advantage, 
will retire from them in disgust, or as feeling themselves per- 
sonally unfitted for the din, and the dust, and the besoilment 
of the political arena; leaving the conduct of political affairs to 
those who are least fitted for and least to be trusted in their 
direction. 

8. Another evil is that of an excessively augmenting public 
revenue, collected, contrary to the principles and genius of a 
democratic government, by indirect taxation; and consequent 
corruption. 

9. Another evil, to which, from the peculiar structure of our 
political system, we are exposed, is one comprehending two 
opposite dangers; on the one hand that of Federation, leading 
to anarchy; and on the other that of Centralization, leading to 
absolutism. 

10. Another evil from which we are in danger is the tenden- 
cy to turbulence in a Democratic polity. 

Do not misunderstand me. I am a democrat, as I under- 
stand democracy. Not according to that bastard democracy, 
which so often usurps the name of the true, while it has no ele- 
ment of its character, but is only its miserable caricature. 
True Democracy is, doubtless, a great good for a people who 
know how to use it as not abusing it. The whole polity of 
our own government is becoming more and more Democratic, 
at least in profession. If it be imbued with the true principle 
of Democracy, I do not object. Said M. Serri, in the Legis- 
lative Assembly of France, in 1820, in a tone of deprecation; 



30 

"Democracy flows on with a [full stream." "If," replied M. 
Collard, one of the most patriotic men and truest lovers of lib- 
erty in that country, "If by Democracy you understand that 
progress of industry, art, law, manners, and light, which has 
now for some centuries been increasing, I am well pleased with 
such democracy: .and, for my own part, instead of blaspheming 
the age in which I live, I feel grateful to Providence for having 
assigned my birth to an epoch, in which God has been pleased 
to call a greater number of his creatures than heretofore, to a 
participation in the virtues, the intelligence, and the manners, 
which had hitherto been reserved but for few." This is De- 
mocracy as I understand it; only, holding as I do that true De- 
mocracy has sprung from a Christian civilization, I would as- 
cribe to it more of Christian character. It is, indeed, a fruit 
of Christianity; whose glory it is that it condescends to men of 
low estate, to take hold upon the human nature in them, and 
redeeming and regenerating it, to raise them up to the pursuit 
of honour, glory, immortality, and the end eternal life. Chris- 
tianity does not treat men with contumely, with disdain, with 
contempt. It does not talk with supercilious spirit and in op- 
probious words, of "the lower orders." It has in its vocabu- 
lary no such terms as "the populace," "the rabble," "the ca- 
naille." It comes preaching the gospel to the poor, that, trans- 
formed by the renewing of their mind, they may be made God's 
sons and daughters, God's nobles; and that, even in earthly re- 
lations, it may lift up the poor and the needy from the dung- 
hill and set them among princes. This is Democracy as I un- 
derstand it: it is the only democracy I care for. Let it flow on 
with a full stream. But this it behooves us to understand and 
to consider; — that if our democracy do not ruin us, it must be 
of this kind. It must be animated and actuated by the spirit 
of Christianity. This, let it be deeply settled in our hearts, is 
the condition on which alone a democracy is possible. There 
is no other alternative. Without doubt, a people must be ruled, 
either by a sword of iron, or by the sword of the Spirit, which 
bringing them under law to Christ, makes them a law unto 
themselves. 

11. In speaking of the evils which endanger the well-being 
of our nation, it would be a prudish affectation of reserve which 



8} 

you do not expect of me, if I were to omit to mention that 
evil of gigantic magnitude, which more than any other, or than 
all others together, is at present threatening our continued ex- 
istence as a united people, and the dark shadow of which is 
filling with gloomy apprehensions the minds of so many patri- 
otic and good men; — I need not say that I mean slavery, and 
especially the present spirit of slavery propogandism. 

Fellow-citizens, upon this subject of slavery I am no anarch- 
ist, no fanatic, no factionist. I have never made it a hobby; 
for I do not ride hobbies. On slavery, where it already exists, 
I have seldom publicly spoken or written. First, because, ad- 
miring the Divine wisdom and beneficence in overruling this 
great evil, to the bringing of a wretched people from savageism 
and heathenism to some knowledge of Christianity and the 
acts of civilized life, and, as I hope, training them as a mis- 
sionary people, to go back to the land of their fathers, carry- 
ing the lights of Christianity and a Christian civilization to a 
continent which has for 3000 years lain buried in a night of 
Egyptian darkness, I have been inclined to be still before 
God, and patient in view of the wrong in the human instru- 
mentality. Second, because not living among a slaveholding 
people, I have thought it less my vocation to discuss this sub- 
ject than evils existing among ourselves. Third, because I 
have been convinced that, if the question of slavery is to have 
an issue, peaceful and beneficial to all the parties concerned, 
men living in the midst of it alone are competent to deal effec- 
tually with it; and I have always cherished, and am still dis- 
posed to cherish, the hope, that there will be found in the 
States where slavery exists true-hearted ministers of the Di- 
vine word, and true statesmen, who in their respective spheres, 
would be faithful in the great work which God has laid upon 
them; in preparing the way and guiding the people in measures 
for the abolition of the whole system. Whenever I have spoken 
upon this subject, it has been with a clear and full recognition 
of the manifold and great difficulties which embarrass the ques- 
tion of slavery and the slave population, as one to be practi- 
cally dealt with; with disapproval of the injustice of an in- 
discriminate denunciation of all, the guilty and the innocent 
alike, who are in any way connected with the system; and 



:!•> 



with an acknowledgment of the great consideration which I 
think is justly due to honest-hearted men, implicated unwil- 
lingly in the evils of the system, who are doing the best 
they can under their circumstances, and are seeking, in patience 
and prudence, by means wise, safe, and feasible, to bring it as 
soon as possible to an end. All this I have always said; 
though some small men, for their own small ends, have misre- 
presented me on the subject. All this I now repeat. 

But, having said these things; having said them always; and 
now saying them again;. I say further, that when the question 
is about a demand on the whole nation, the free States as well 
as the slaveholding, through the national government, to na- 
tionalize a system which exists only by local law, or custom 
having the forge of law, and to perpetuate it, and extend it into 
new territories; then, fellow-citizens, the question belongs to 
you, and to me, and to us all, and to each one of us; the merits 
of the system are open to discussion; and upon it, as upon all 
other great political and moral evils which afflict our country, 
and its remedy, I must speak, as I have always done, plain 
and fearless words, according to the truth of the case, as I 
apprehend it. 

Christianity I believe to be the true remedy for all moral 
evils, and for all political evils which arise from moral causes. 
I believe that it is the only effectual remedy for this evil of 
slavery. Let us inquire how Christianity deals with slavery. 

Christianity did not encounter slavery, during the personal 
ministry of its Divine author, Christ Jesus, on the earth; for 
slavery never existed in Israel. But our Lord laid down the 
fundamental principle which must, whenever acted on, put an 
end to slavery, with all other injustice and oppression, in the 
second great commandment of the Divine law, like unto the 
first, — "Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself; — all things 
whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even 
the same unto them." 

When Christianity came abroad among the Graeco-Roman 
populations, among whom it first met a slave, how did it deal 
with slavery? 

Let us understand what slavery is; that we may know what 
we are inquiring about, and not talk in ambiguous terms, 



*3 

without any conclusion. What is slavery? What is it, as it 
existed among those Graeco-Roman populations where Chris- 
tianity first met it; and as it exists among modern nations? 

Aristotle, the great master of dialectics among the subtle, 
sharp-witted, and discriminating Greek philosophers, gives us 
the distinctly defined ethical and political conception of slavery, 
as it existed among that people. The relation between the 
owner and his slave he represents as like that between an ar- 
tizan and his tools. He expressly defines a slave to be opya- 
vov £wov, an animate tool: or, by another term, ipupvyov op- 
avbv, an animate tool; or, if you please, a tool with a soul in it. 
He turns the matter back and forth, that there may be no mis- 
take. Says he; 6 douXoz Iptyuyov opyavov; — to d' opyavov &(pu- 
yo<; doukoz: — a slave is a tool with a soul in it; a tool is a slave 
without a soul. And this is slavery everywhere. In the codes 
of those States in our own country that undertake to define 
what a slave is, he is defined to be one who "shall be taken 
and held to be, to all intents, purposes, and constructions, what- 
soever, goods and chattels (cattle), in the hand of his owner." 
And, in States where the terms slave and slavery axe not for- 
mally defined, this is the definition that is assumed, and on 
which the whole system and the procedure under it rests. 
This is slavery: a system which divests human beings of the 
character and rights of persons, and reduces them to the char- 
acter of things, having no rights. Hence the refusal of the 
laws to recognize marriage and other domestic relations as ex- 
isting among slaves, or to protect the rights belonging to those 
relations. Hence the authorization of traffic in slaves as in 
other chattels (cattle) and goods, at the will, and solely for the 
profit of the owners. Hence the denial to them of the means 
of intellectual and moral culture. Hence the prohibition of 
even teaching them to read God's word. 

0, but this system, it is said in apology, is not carried out 
in practice; and there are other laws to protect the slaves from 
cruelty. Besure, the system is not universally and consistent- 
ly carried out. That is just what Aristotle says about it, as 
slavery existed even among the heathen; that a common hu- 
manity, breaking through the restraints imposed by this un- 
natural system, established between the man who was a slave 
5 



34 

and the man who was his master, a human fellowship. Much 
more is not the system universally and consistently carried out, 
where a Christian civilization exists. The Kruptcia could not 
exist in a Christian country. Men, even wicked men, are not 
devils. Nevertheless the system, as established by law, and to 
a great extent actually carried out in practice, is what has 
been represented. We have given the terms in which the 
authors and maintainers of the system have chosen to define it. 

Now, how did Christianity treat this system, when, under the 
direction of the inspired apostles of Christ, it first encountered 
it? Did it sanction a system Avhieh holds a man to be a tool? 
— a living tool, even a tool with a soul in if? Did it set the 
seal of its approbation upon such a relation as this? It did 
no such thing. Every principle of common humanity reclaims 
against it. Every principle of natural justice condemns it. 
The whole genius and spirit of Christianity sets on it the seal 
of its reprobation, as heathenish, inhuman, false, and devilish. 

The Epistle to Philemon is, I believe, with the "Christian" 
defenders of slavery, the classical epistle; though, for the life 
of me I never could sec why. Well, what docs the Epistle to 
Philemon say? Onesimus, a fugitive slave, came to Rome, 
where he met Paul, and was by his ministry converted to Chris- 
tianity. Paul sent him back to his master Philemon, also a 
Christian, with a letter. And what docs the letter say? "To 
the Honourable Mr. Philemon, greeting; Sir: I, Paul, the 
Apostle of Jesus Christ, being here at Rome, on the business 
of my apostleship, have caught Onesimus, your tool with a soul 
in it, running away; and having captured it, and handcuffed it, 
I had it up before the Prefect, and have got out a warrant; 
and now I send back to you your undutiful tool with a soul in 
it, in chains, that you may recover your property, and have the 
use of your tool with a soul in it: for we have a law, and by 
our law you have an undoubted rigid to your tool with a soul 
in it. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your 
spirit, brother Philemon; Amen." Was this the Epistle? No: 
not exactly. Happily the document is extant, and in your 
own hands, and in your own tongue wherein you were born, 
that you may read and understand. How read you? — "Paul, 
a prisoner of Jesus Christ, to Philemon: — I might be much bald 



in Christ Jesus to enjoin thee that which is convenient: yet for 
love's sake I rather beseech thee for my son Onesimus; whom 
I have sent again. Thou, therefore, receive him, that is mine 
own bowels. Receive him not now as a servant (a douXot;, a 
tool, or a servant even;) but above a servant, a brother; — receive 
him AS myself. — The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with 
thy spirit: Amen." — That is the letter. I think that if the 
Commissioners' papers under our fugitive slave law were made 
out in the terms of this mittimus of Paul, there would be no 
mobs about the matter, around Faneuil Hall, the old cradle of 
liberty. 

But there are other Apostolical epistles which touch upon 
this matter: — What do they say? 

This same Apostle Paul, in his first Epistle to the Corinthi- 
ans, writes; "Art thou called, being a servant; care not for it: 
but if thou may est be made free, use it rather. For he that is 
called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: like- 
wise he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are 
bought with a price; be not ye servants of men." In the epis- 
tle to the Ephesians he writes; "Servants, be obedient to them 
that are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and 
trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with 
eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, 
doing the will of God from the heart: with good will doing ser- 
vice, as to the Lord, and not to men." In the Epistle to the 
Colossians, he says; "Servants, obey in all things your masters 
according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; 
but in singleness of heart, fearing God; and whatsoever ye do, 
do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men." In the 
first Epistle to Timothy, he says; "Let as many servants as 
are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all hon- 
our, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 
And they that have believing masters, let them not despise 
them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, 
because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." 
Peter, another of the chief of the Apostles, says; "Servants, 
be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good 
and gentle, but also to the forward: for this is thankworthy to- 
ward God, if a man, for conscience toward God, endure grief, 



06 

suffering wrongfully: — because Christ also suffered for us, 
leaving us an example, that we should follow his footsteps." 

This is what the Apostles of Christ say on the subject to 
servants. What is the import of all this, and its bearing on 
the question before us? 

The question is, wliat duties did the Apostles enjoin on ser- 
vants; and on what grounds'? Let it be remembered that, ac- 
cording to the conception of the Greeks, the relation between 
the master and his slave was the same as that between an arti- 
zan and his tools; a slave was onyavov ^coov, opyavov e/i^u^ou; 
an animate tool, a tool with a soul; but a mere tool. Now, do 
the Apostles enjoin on servants to yield themselves to their 
masters in their quality of tools, to be taken, held, and used as 
tools? Do they enjoin this on the ground that their masters 
are their owners, and they are the tools of these owners? 
These are the questions which are pertinent to the case 
before us, when the object of the inquiry is to learn whether 
the Apostles sanctioned slavery: for this was the slavery they 
had to do with; and it is what slavery is essentially every- 
where. These questions require no answer. 

But, let it be supposed that those whom the apostles address 
by the term do'jloc were, not tools, but bond-servants, as no 
doubt they were; we repeat the question, What duties did the 
Apostles enjoin on them as bond-servants; and on what 
grounds? 

Why, they begin by saying to the bond-servant, "If thou 
mayest be made free, use it rather." If the inward and out- 
ward conditions of freedom exist in your case, so that you 
can obtain it, use your opportunity. But if not, "care not for 
it;" do not be troubled about it. And why? Because you 
suffer no wrong, no injustice, in being held as a bond-servant, 
though you are fitted for freedom? Is this the reason of the 
injunction, Care not for it? No: but it is this. Christianity 
puts those who embrace it, the bond and the free alike, into 
an infinitely higher sphere than that of your earthly life, and 
introduces them to relations, privileges, obligations, and des- 
tinies, before which the earthly shrink into insignificance. In 
view of this, if you suffer in your bondage hardship, or in- 
justice, bear it with patience and cheerfulness, as you do other 



37 

evils. There is added an express admonition as to the ground 
on which bond-servants, in such a case, are to perform their 
duties. "Ye are bought with a price: be ye not servants of 
men:" that is, your duties, in the case supposed, rest not on the 
ground of any rigid in your masters to hold you as their bond- 
servants, but on the ground of your relation to Christ as his 
bond-servants. 1 Cor. vii: 21, 23. In harmony with this are 
all the other passages which we have cited from the Apostles. 
They enjoin on servants to be obedient to their masters; to be 
subject to them; to account them worthy of all honour; and to 
serve them with cheerfulness and fidelity, avoiding the vices of 
duplicity and deception, to which they had from their condition 
peculiar temptations. But on what ground are they required 
to perform these duties? Is there one of these passages in 
which the obligation to these duties is made to rest on the 
ground of a right in their masters to hold them as bond-ser- 
vants? Not one. In them all there is not one word to any 
such effect. On the contrary, it is remarkable how constantly 
in all these passages the obligation to these duties enjoined is 
placed on entirely different grounds; — their relations to God 
and his Christ. Be ye not servants of men: — be obedient, as 
unto Christ; — as servants unto Christ; — doing service, as unto 
the Lord: — Whatsoever ye do, do it as unto the Lord, and not 
unto men: Let servants count their masters worthy of all hon- 
our, that the name of God be not blasphemed: — this is thank- 
worthy, if a man for conscience toioard God endure grief, suf- 
fering wrongfully: — because Christ also suffered for us, leaving 
us an example, that we shoidd folloiv his footsteps. Eph. vi: 5, 
7. Col. iii: 22, 24. 1 Tim. vi: 1, 2. 1 Pet. ii: 18, 21. The 
scope of all is this. Christianity is just entering into these 
heathen nations, and will in time transform all things. Do 
not, in the beginning, hinder its entrance, by your impatience 
under wrong and injustice. Take joyfully, if need be, the 
spoiling of your goods and the loss of all things. Do all 
things and suffer all things, for Christ's sake, and the gospel's 
sake. If they call you tools, they called Christ a seditionist 
and a blasphemer. If they rob you, they crucified Christ. 
You are identified with Christ in this great redemption. You 
are called to fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of 



38 

Christ for his body's sake. This is what the Apostles say to 
servants, and this is its import. 

What do the Apostles say to masters? "Ye masters, do the 
same things unto them, forbearing threatening; knowing that 
your Master is in heaven." "Masters, give unto your ser- 
vants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have 
a master in heaven." And what is the import of this? A re- 
cognition of their rigid to hold and use their servants as tools? 
A right to hold them as their bondservants even, in perpetui- 
ty? No such thing. There is not a word to any such effect. 
Is it not rather, Obliterate, at once and forever, from your minds 
this heathenish idea, that your servants are your tools. Recog- 
nize them as your fellow-men, whom God hath made of one 
blood to dwell together on the face of the earth; if Christians, 
as your brethren in Christ. If their character is such as to 
disqualify them for freedom, or the laws make their emancipa- 
tion impossible, hold them, while the necessity continues, as 
your servants; as your bond-servants; if need be, your involun- 
tary bond-servants. Give to them, in this character and these 
relations, what justice and equity require; the things needful 
for the body, education, intellectual and moral and religious 
culture, fitting them for freedom; and, when this is possible, 
freedom. Is not this that which is just and equal.' 

But, "Christianity," it is said, "does not begin with outward 
revolutions and changes, which to be useful, require an inward 
preparation." Very true. But how is this inward prepara- 
tion in the masters and the slaves to be effected by Christianity, 
if the ministers of Christianity never expound Christianity in 
its relation to this enormous wrong? — Hoav, if the burden of their 
gospel to the slaves is; "Obey your masters, as their slaves; 
your owners have a right to hold you as their slaves, their jpro- 
perty, their goods and chattels (cattle): that is your condi- 
tion and your character; be content with it? — How, if the burden 
of the gospel to the masters is; "You have a right to hold and 
use your slaves, as slaves, your property; your goods and chat- 
tels: only remember they are tools with souls in them; and be 
kind to them, and let" them have prayers in their quarters, and 
get preaching for them: — and that will do. — That is about 
what is just and equal?" How, I ask, is Christianity to effect 



the inward preparation in slaves and masters, if such be its 
exposition? 

"But the Apostles enjoined great forbearance on the sub- 
ject, on account of the state of society, and of the laws, and of 
public opinion among the heathen." Yes: I admit it. So I 
interpret many of the injunctions upon servants. But, what 
then? Are slaveholders at this day, and in the United States, 
to be regarded and treated as heathen? Is that the plea? 

"Well, but this discussion of the subject is producing great 
excitement, and endangering our national union: if only you 
all will quit agitating the subject, and let thegospelhe preach- 
ed, the simple gospel; — the spirit of the gospel will work the 
destruction of slavery, quietly and peaceably." It will, will 
it? Yes: I believe so. But what gospel? and ivhat preaching 
of the gospel? The spirit of Christianity has been working 
for 1800 years in the world, and it has worked the destruction 
of slavery over nearly all the world that has received it. 
How is it in our own country? In our own country it has been 
working for some 200 years from the planting of the first col- 
onies; — for eighty years since, as an independent nation, ap- 
pealing to God, we solemnly declared to the world, that "we 
hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created 
equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalien- 
able rights; among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness;" — for sixty-eight years, since the people of the 
United States ordained and established the Constitution of the 
United States, "in order to form a more perfect union, estab- 
lish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the com- 
mon defence, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and our posterity." What progress has been made by the 
spirit of the gospel in working the destruction of slavery? 
What progress in this last period, since our national system 
was perfected, and the spirit of the gospel has had free course? 
Why, at the time of the establishment of the Constitution, 
there were less than half a million of slaves: now there are 
more tli&nfour millions. Are you satisfied with this result of 
the working of the spirit of the gospel? Again, what progress 
has the spirit of the gospel made in working such a change in 
the public opinion, the sentiments, the purposes, of the peo- 



40 

pie, as shall bring about the destruction of slavery? The Con- 
vention which formed the Constitution, composed of statesmen 
who were statesmen, in effect said: "We are forming a Constitu- 
tion, for the establishment of justice, liberty, and the general 
welfare; a Constitution to endure, as we hope, for many ages. 
Here is this system of slavery! It exists. It cannot be immedi- 
ately terminated: We have no power over it. But it is an ano- 
maly in States where it exists; contrary to natural justice; a 
paradox in the moral system. It must be temporary in its exist- 
ence. It is destined soon to die. It is in direct conflict with 
the ethical and ethico-political principles of our whole system, 
and the ends for which this Constitution is formed: and the 
name of slavery must not blot the face of this Constitution, 
destined to continue, long after this anomalous and nefarious 
system shall have passed away and perished."* And accord- 
ingly the term slave, or slavery, or the equivalent of either, is 
nowhere found in the instrument. Of set purpose they were 
kept out. The very strong language used at that period by 
Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Madison, and all the great 
statesmen, of the South not less than of the North, is well 
known. Well, what progress these sixty-eight years has the 
spirit of the gospel made, in working such a change of public 
sentiment on the subject as to effect the destruction of the sys- 
tem? Why, this system of slavery, which takes and holds men 
and women to be goods and chattels, in the early days of the 
Republic barely endured, endured reluctlantly and with difficul- 
ty, because of a supposed necessity, has gradually increased 
in power, and advanced step by step, in its pretensions, and its 
assumptions, and its aggressions, until, grown so strong as to 
seize upon and wield to its own purposes, the national govern- 
ment, it has through a long course of years, made this an in- 
strument for its own perpetuation and extension into new re- 
gions — and this system, which was morally too bad to be 
named in the Constitution, it is now claimed that the Consti- 
tution recognizes and binds the whole nation to protect as one 
of the most sacred of rights! And this is the progress! 

*See The Madison Papers, Vol. Ill, pp. 1261, 1263, 1388, 1390, 1391, 1393, 
1394. 1427, 1428, 1429.— Yates's Secret Debates; and Martin's Report to the 
Legislature of Maryland, pp. 64, 66. Albany, 1821. 



41 

Well, we think that it is time that the spirit of the gospel, 
working to the destruction of slavery, by creating right con- 
victions, and sentiments, and principles on the subject, in the 
minds and hearts of the individual members of the nation, had 
begun to work up into the Body-Politic, and to express itself 
in political actings of a different kind from these. And we are 
glad to see indications of this, in the present discussions, and 
the present awakening of the public conscience and the public 
heart upon the subject. We have always known that, sooner 
or later, it would come. The discussion will go on. Better 
views will obtain. The truth will prevail. Right principles 
will gain the ascendency over sordid interest, and a spirit of 
timidity, and a mistaken expediency, in the minds of men; and 
then they will act upon these better views and principles. 

To all this there will be, as there has been, opposition from 
Various quarters. 

First, there will be the whole class of men who make a trade 
of politics; who have their gain, whether of personal honours 
and consequence or of pecuniary emolument, by this craft. 
These men will be full of patriotism; yes, and of all patriotic 
virtues; — virtues of the kind described by Burke, in a passage 
well applied by a distinguished Senator of our own country, in 
a great speech, involving this question of slavery, some years 
ago. "Far, far from the Commons of Great Britain be all 
manner of real vice: but ten thousand times farther from them, 
as far as from pole to pole, be the whole tribe of spurious, af- 
fected, counterfeit, and hypocritical virtues. These are the 
things that are ten thousand times more at Avar with real 
virtue, these are the things that are ten thousand times more 
at war with real duty, than any vice known by its name and 
distinguished by its proper character. Far, far from us be 
that false and affected candoul that is eternally in treaty with 
crime; — that half virtue which, like the ambiguous animal 
which flies about in the twilight of a compromise between 
day and night, is to a just man's eye an odious and disgusting 
thing."* 

Next, there will be another class of traders, the men that 

*QuotedJby IIou. W. EL Seward, in his Speech in the Senate, on the admis- 
sion of California, March, 1850. 
6 



42 

buy cotton from the slaveholders, and sell to them coarse mns- 
lins, and coarse woollens, and brogans, and cotton-gins, and 
sugar-mills, and plows, and hoes, and handcuffs, and whips. 
This class of patriots will be very anxious, too, about the 
union, and the country, and our liberties, and our national 
greatness and glory. 

Then, there will be the class of "the higher orders," as 
they complacently call themselves. Very comfortable in their 
own condition, they are very little troubled by sufferings 
which themselves do not feel; — marvellously calm, and patient, 
and conservative, under wrongs, and injustice, and outrage, 
which do not touch them. This class of men are, by nature 
and by habit, averse to whatever causes a deep and powerful 
movement of the mind and the feelings of a people. More 
affected by a sense of present evils, than by the hope of fu- 
ture good, they demand at all events quiet. Why should 
their respose be disturbed by a fuss about the negroes, "who 
are better off than the lower orders of the whites in the free 
States?" 

Then, there will be found that class of very fair and im- 
partial men, always a large one where there is a controversy 
between rigid and wrong, the half and half men, full of that 
kind of candour which the British satirist describes, — the 

"Candour which loves in see-saw strain to tell, 

"Of acting knavishly, but meaning well, 

"Too nice to praise exactly, or to blame, 

"Convinced that all men's motives are the same; 

"And finds, with keen discriminating sight, 

"Black's not so black, nor white so very white 

"Barras plays traitor, Merlin takes a bribe: 

"What then; shall candour these good men proscribe'! 

"No: ere we join the loud-accusing throng, 

"Prove, not the facts, — but that they thought them wrong." 

These "candid" men, 'tis often hard to bear; and one is 
often ready to say, 

"Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe; 
"Bold I can meet him; — perhaps may turn his blow; 
"But, of all plagues, good heaven, thy wrath can send, 
"Save, save, oh! — save me from the 'candid' friend! 



43 

"I lov<a the bold, uncompromising mind, 
"Whose principles are fixed, whose views defined; 
"Who owns, when traitors feel the avenging rod, 
"Just retribution, and the hand of God."* 

We expect opposition from all these classes, and from some 
others. Nevertheless the discussion will go on; truth will 
prevail; and, sooner or later, the right will triumph. We do 
not despair of the Republic. We are full of good hopes o$ 
the Republic; because we are full of good hopes in God. 
The fearful and the unbelieving may say, 'It will bo 
foul weather; for the sky is red and lowering;' and their 
hearts may fail, because they hear the mutterings of the thun- 
der and the swellings of the troubled waters, portending a 
coming storm. The agitation of the political and moral ele- 
ments is not the worst thing that can happen a people. The 
progress of society and the improvement of the human race, 
require the repression of wrongs against humanity, the re- 
dress of grievances, the reform of abuses, the establishment 
of universal and impartial justice in all the public and private 
relations of a people. No doubt, it were a thing to be desir- 
ed, that all such reformations and ameliorations should take 
place without agitation or conflict; and that blessings should 
come to men only under forms of beneficence, and by means! 
in themselves fraught with pleasure. But to expect this be^ 
trays both unacquaintance with the history of the world, and 
ignorance of the spirit which actuates the god of this world 
and the powers of darkness, in their war with the powers of 

liffht seeking to redeem and bless mankind. These reforma- 
ts o 

tions and ameliorations, at all events, are necessary. This 
subject of slavery and especially of slavery propagandism 
will be discussed. I hope calmly, temperately, wisely, truth- 
fully. But it will be discussed. If violent men are by the 
discussion of it excited to deeds of violence, we shall regret 
it. Such deeds we shall deprecate in advance, and reprobate 
when they occur. If by their violence they stir up civil com- 
motions, and strifes, and conflicts, Avhich God forbid, we shall 
deplore it: but there are greater evils than even this. Alger- 



*"New Morality," by the Hon. Geo. Canning:— slightly altered. 



44 

non Sidney was quite right "when he said; "Civil tu- 
mults, and wars are not the greatest evils that befal nations. 
'Tis ill that men should kill one another in seditions, tumults, 
and wars: but 'tis worse to bring men to such misery, weak- 
ness, and baseness, as to have neither courage nor strength to 
contend for anything; — to have nothing worth defending, and 
to give the name of peace to desolation." So we think. I 
repeat, that the agitation of the political and moral elements 
is not the worst thing that can happen a nation. Even though 
it should be marked for a time by some violence and confu- 
sion, this may be the necessary means of moral and political 
improvement. NaJuxe_hjyJi f _jio t only it s_sun fihJP ft a nd— iia 
gentle and fertilizing rains; but, also, its hurricanes, its in- 
undations, and its earthquakes, which avert greater evils; the 
types of convulsions in the moral and political- world, which 
may have been made inevitable by our own faults, or those of 
our predecessors. 

But there will be no civil wars, or commotions, to affect 
injuriously the permanent well-being of the nation. God, 
our God, the confidence of all the ends of the earth, He who 
stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and 
the tumult of the people, will lay his hand upon these, and 
say, Peace; be still; — the clouds will disperse, and the sun 
break forth; — and it will be found that the agitation of the 
elements has but served to render the atmosphere more pure 
and wholesome, and the fitter to sustain the life of a free na- 
tion. 

Of any disruption of the bonds of our national union, 
or any serious disturbance of the public peace, growing out 
of the questions at present agitating the public mind, I have no 
fear. There may be here and there a man who will try con- 
clusions not with the weapons of reason, but with the bludgeon, 
and here and there one, in raving threatenings, venting the in- 
ane fulminations of fatuity and folly. 

We will not mind these violent and unreasonable men. There 
are in the South, as well as in the North, sane men, Avise, hon- 
est-hearted, patriotic men; Avho dislike slavery as heartily as we 
do, and with more cause. To them we will address ourselves, 
as well as to the men of the free States. We say to them; as 



45 

we have always said; Slavery, as it exists within your own 
States, by your own local law, we have no Constitutional power 
over; with it we will not interfere; we leave it to your own dis- 
posal. We will do you no injustice in our words or in our 
judgments. We will acknowledge the difficulties of the ques- 
tion which you have to solve. We will appreciate every hon- 
est endeavour to bring it to a right solution. When you de- 
sire it, we will assist you, from the common resources of the 
nation, in removing the evil. But when the claim is set up 
that this system, which, contrary to the law of nature, exists 
only by local law, shall become nationalized, and that its 
"rights under the Constitution," and according to the "compro- 
mises of the Constitution," shall be recognized, and acknow- 
ledged; and it, through the national government, shall be pro- 
tected, perpetuated, extended, by the free States, by the whole 
nation; — we say, No. We say that in favour of slavery, a sys- 
tem which takes and holds men and women to be "goods and 
chattels, to all intents, purposes, and constructions whatso- 
ever," there are no compromises of the Constitution. We say, 
that such a system has no rights under the Constitution, or 
anywhere else. We say, that a system, which was morally too 
bad to be named in the bond, the bond don't bind the parties 
under it to recognize and protect. And when the claim is set 
up and urged, that the free States shall become parties in per- 
petuating and extending it; we say, We will not do it. When 
Demosthenes was exerting all his power in an endeavour to 
rouse the Athenians to a vigorous opposition to the ambitious 
designs of Philip against the liberties of Greece, expressing 
the determination of a resolute heart not to be moved from its 
purpose, he said; "Greece shall be free: I swear it by our brave 
forefathers; by the manes of those illustrious men who fell at 
Marathon, at Plataea, and at Salamis; by their sacred ashes 
which sleep in the public monuments; and by the eternal gods." 
So we, with the sacred ashes of our fathers before our eyes, 
and their memory in our hearts, will swear by the Eternal God, 
the true and living God, that as the Lord liveth, and as our 
soul liveth, by our agency, a system too bad to be named in 
the Constitution, shall not under that Constitution, formed for 
the establishment, of justice, liberty, and the general welfare, 



40 

be nationalized; nor a system which holds men and women to 
be goods and chattels, be extended into territories consecrated 
to freedom. 

Gentlemen of the Erodelphian and Eccritean Societies; a 
word to you, and I have done. 

Erodelphians; — the Platonic Epco~, from which your Society 
takes its denomination, is not the affection denoted by the term 
<pdla; nor yet the emotion of satisfaction designated by the term 
dydzy; but rather desire, the i-cdu/Jtta aoepcac. The other ele- 
ment of your composite name indicates that for the gratifica- 
tion of this desire you seek to Delphi. Not the least regret 
have I, that you should go thither, explore the hidden cavern 
where once stood the Adytum of Apollo's Oracle, and wander- 
ing all around famed Parnassus, bring thence whatever of 
spoils you can gather there. But not from these sources, let 
me tell you, will all your labours bring to you satisfaction. It 
has often been remarked of the old Greek philosophy, and 
especially of the philosophy of Plato, that it awakened in 
the hearts of men a sense of wants and created in them 
desires, which it had no power to satisfy. The Socratic 
idea of ipcoz, as developed in the Symposion of Plato, is 
that of an kmdofua ooifiac., by which the soul, filled with de- 
sire for the Divine wisdom, is winged to soar to the heavens, 
and seek it there. A greater Teacher than Plato ever dream- 
ed of has come down from the heavens, and has appeared 
among men, as the Light of the world and the Life of men. 
That is the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh 
into the world; and without whose revelations the world, and 
above all in the world, man, must ever remain an inexplicable 
enigma. This explains the mystery of the world and of man. 
This is the true wisdom which alone can meet the deep wants 
and satisfy the yearning desires of the soul that reflects. The 
true wisdom is to be obtained only by seeking unto the Ora- 
cles of God, in which the great Teacher speaks to men. 

Eccriteans; — you are eclectics and critics. Allow me to com- 
mend to you a precept out of the Divine Oracles to which I 
have referred; — fldvra 8ox(ftd£ete, zo xaXbfi /aziytzt. 



47 

Gentlemen; a principal object of your residence in this Uni- 
versity and of all your learning here, is the formation of char- 
acter. The Greek moralists made the four cardinal virtues to 
be bamoabvq, oioypoo'jvf], dvdpda, and aoipia; — righteousness, 
self -government, manliness, and wisdom. They are worthy all 
to be inlaid as corner-stones in your building. Deep at the 
foundation of these and all other virtues lies another, the sub- 
jective aXqdeca, — that inward truthfulness of mind, which pre- 
disposes the understanding objectively to perceive in things 
what is true, and the heart to cleave to it, and the will to obey 
it. This is fundamental to all good character. Whatsoever 
things are true, whatsoever things honest, whatsoever things 
just, whatsoever things pure, whatsoever things lovely, what- 
soever things of good report; if there be any virtue, and if any 
praise, think on these things. So, in this seat of learning, es- 
tablished by this Commonwealth, and endowed by the munifi- 
cence of this great Confederacy of Commonwealths, there 
shall be bred up, from time to time, a new stock of men, good 
men and true, high-minded and high-principled men, who shall 
know, and knowing dare to maintain, not their rights only but 
their duties also, both their rights and their duties, the sup- 
ports and the crowning glory of States. 



TlBRARY OF CONGREbb 




001 1 801 828 A 



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